Paul Takashi Nagai
Paul Takashi Nagai ( Japanese 永 井 隆 , Nagai Takashi ; born February 3, 1908 in Matsue , † May 1, 1951 in Nagasaki ) was a Japanese radiologist , author and survivor of the atomic bombing on Nagasaki .
Life
Takashi Nagai was born in the coastal city of Matsue on the Sea of Japan . In 1928 he began to study medicine at Nagasaki Medical School (today: Nagasaki University ). The first dramatic experience for him was the sudden death of his mother in 1930 caused by a stroke , which sparked in him the belief in the immortality of the soul. He then began to read Blaise Pascal's Pensées (thoughts) , which made him want to get to know Catholicism and deal with it. In order to find a point of contact with faith, he looked for a Catholic family with whom he wanted to sublet during his studies. The daughter of this family, Midori Moriyama, would later become his wife. He saved her life by carrying her through the snow and ice as quickly as possible to the distant hospital when she suffered from acute appendicitis . In 1932, Nagai contracted an otitis media that made his right ear deaf. This thwarted his plan to become a doctor , as he was no longer able to use the stethoscope . So he turned to the study of radiology, a subject that was still in its infancy at that time and was associated with great health risks, as one did not yet know how to protect oneself sufficiently against X-rays .
The following year Nagai had to interrupt his studies because he was drafted into the Japanese army to fight against the Republic of China in Manchuria (or the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo ) . Midori gave him a catechism in which he read with interest. After the horror of the war, he returned home desperate and challenged his life. He found help and reorientation from a pastor whom he had visited in Nagasaki Cathedral . Finally he took courage and resumed his radiology studies. After his baptism , in which he gave himself the baptismal name Paul in reference to St. Paul Miki , a Japanese martyr who was crucified in Nagasaki in 1597, he finally married Midori in August 1934. He advised her that he was resigning from his work would be detrimental to health in radiology. However, this could not prevent her from getting married, on the contrary, she supported him in his work, knowing that she too would help many people through this. The marriage with Midori produced four children, the three daughters Ikuko, Sasano and Kayano (* 1941), of whom the first two died in early childhood, and the son Makoto (1935-2001). From 1937 to 1940 Nagai took part in the Sino-Japanese war as a doctor and stood out for his selfless and tireless commitment to the victims. At that time he was already noticing the first side effects of his work as a radiologist. He received his doctorate in 1944.
At the time of the atomic bombing on August 9, 1945 at 11.02 a.m., Dr. Nagai in the Radiology Department of Nagasaki University Hospital. He sustained a serious injury to his right temple, but took care of the numerous injured immediately and two days later had to find his wife dead in the ruins of her house, next to her rosary . Even so, he worked tirelessly for another fifty-eight days treating the atomic bomb victims and teaching at the college. Shortly afterwards, Nagai collapsed due to the radiological radiation and the leukemia exacerbated by the nuclear radiation . He made the diagnosis himself, in consultation with a radiologist friend, and gave himself another three years to live.
As his leukemia worsened, Nagai became bedridden and spent his life with his children Makoto and Kayano in a small hut built by his grateful patients and students. Nagai called it a hermitage and named it Nyoko-dō after Jesus ' words "love your neighbor as yourself". He spent his remaining years there in prayer and contemplation. At the time of his death in 1951, he left an extensive life's work of essays, memoirs, drawings and calligraphies on various subjects including God, war, death, medicine and the fate of being an orphan. These spiritual chronicles of the atomic bomb experience found a large readership during the American occupation of Japan (1945–1952).
His best-known work is The Bells of Nagasaki ( Nagasaki no Kane ), which was completed in August 1946 and deals with the atomic bombs being dropped on Nagasaki. Based on this work, the Japanese director Hideo Ōba made a film of the same name in 1950. Other works by him, some of which were published posthumously, include: a. "We were there in Nagasaki" and "Notes on a death bed" . Many of his works contain scientifically and medically significant contributions, since in them Nagai documents and examines the consequential health damage to the population caused by radioactive radiation.
In 1948, at the instigation of the Kyushu Times , 1,000 saplings of three-year-old cherry trees were planted in the Urakami district, where the bomb fell and Nagai was at work, to transform the devastated land into a mound of flowers. Even though some trees have been replaced over time, they are still called Nagai Senbonzakura (the 1000 cherry trees of Nagai), and their cherry blossoms still beautify homes in spring.
Paul Takashi Nagai became the first honorary citizen of Nagasaki on December 3, 1949, despite protests over his faith. In the same year he was visited by Emperor Hirohito and that of Pope Pius XII. sent Cardinal Gilroy and the American writer Helen Keller .
Because of Nagai's Christian, selfless behavior, he is also called "the saint of Urakami ".
His son later established a library in the hut where his father died, which is now part of the Nagasaki City Nagai Takashi Memorial Museum and which was renovated in 2000.
Quote
“The doctor's duty is to suffer with his patients, to rejoice with them, and to try to alleviate their suffering as if they were his own. You have to have compassion for their pain. In the end, the sick person is not cured by the doctor, but only because it pleases God. As soon as this is understood, the medical diagnosis leads to prayer. "
Works by and literature about Paul Takashi Nagai
- Paul Takashi Nagai: The Bells of Nagasaki. History of the atomic bomb , published in 1946, first edition. in Germany in 1956 at Rex-Verl. Munich, (Translated by Friedrich Seizaburo Nohara), 170 p., 9th edition. Verlag Kleinjörl near Flensburg: Schroeder, 1980, ISBN 3-87721-034-1
- Paul Takashi Nagai: Notes on a Deathbed , Eos-Verlag (1954); antiquarian
- Paul Glynn: A Song for Nagasaki: About the Life of Takashi Nagai , Media Maria Publishing House (2016), ISBN 3-94540-129-1
Individual evidence
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nagai, Paul Takashi |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 永 井 隆 (Japanese); Nagai, Takashi |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese radiologist and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 3, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Matsue , Shimane Prefecture , Japan |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 1, 1951 |
| Place of death | Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture , Japan |